The Kentucky Derby hadn’t been kind to Junior Alvarado. He ran fourth with Mohaymen in 2016 and sixth with Resilience last year. And there were four other attempt to win the Triple Crown race that he would rather not discuss.

But he had every reason to believe this personal black cloud over Kentucky was about to drift away and go bother someone else — thanks to a beautiful racehorse named Sovereignty, owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Emir of Dubai.

When Avarado met the thoroughbred, it was love at first sight. And then it was love at first ride. It was March, just two months until the Derby.

What could go wrong?

But everything did.

On March 23 at Gulfstream Park, his mount had a heart attack and fell right on top of Alvarado, fracturing his shoulder blade. He was well enough to work horses in the morning but not strong enough to ride in a race. He rehabbed and returned to the track for his first race aboard a horse named Caramel chip.

The horse clipped heels with another horse. They both went down. Neither horse nor rider were injured and all Alvarado could see in his mind’s eye was the four times he had ridden Sovereignty and the fear there might not be fifth.

Alvarado’s shoulder injury, left him sidelined for several weeks.

“I can do it,” he kept telling himself. “But will they let me?”

Bill Mott, the trainer, describes himself as “old school in every type of way.” Alvarado says, “I was bred differently.” Put both quotes together and you have two traditional old-school guys. Nothing — not the jockey’s old injury, not the old trainer’s confidence — got in the way of their belief in each other.

So, on Saturday, the trainer, the rider and the horse put it all back together with tri-cornered brilliance. There were 147,000 pilgrims at the old Kentucky home to see it.

Jockeys are “all a different breed,” Alvarado said. “We just heal very quick. I knew the horse had talent the first time I saw him.”

Sovereignty, at 9-1 and with Alvarado aboard, won the 151st running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., on Saturday. He drew a bead on 3-1 favorite Journalism and chased him down to win by 1 1/2 lengths.

All week long, we heard about how and why the San Felipe Derby winner, Journalism, was clearly the best 3-year-old horse on the grounds and possibly the planet.

Certainly, he ran like it, but so did Sovereignty, who held him off during a stirring stretch duel, which by itself was clear testimony how good these two really are.

Mott understands the monumental job his racing family achieved. He forgot nobody when he said, “It takes a family and takes a community to get him ready. From the matings, to raising them as babies, to breaking them as 2-year-olds, we were so lucky to get him in the barn.”

Said Alvarado: “It’s still sinking in, to be honest. It means the world to me, for me and my family. Coming from my country where the only race we would be able to watch back there was just the Kentucky Derby.

“I said that would be nice to be in the United States and ride in the Kentucky Derby. Little by little, I started to point that out to make it come true. We did just that.”

It is a racing story in every aspect. But horse racing is a tomorrow kind of business. Tomorrow brings the kind of hope that makes old men scan the floor in search of accidentally discarded winning mutuel tickets. Now, in this case, tomorrow is just two weeks away in Baltimore at ancient Pimlico Racetrack — in a very different but no less important moment.

The Preakness is a very different kind of challenge — shorter distance, tighter turns, fewer rivals and less chance or time for a horse to go from last to first. But there is one edge Preakness Day has all over the Derby. The only horse with any chance to win the Triple Crown will be there in its starting gate.

So will the horse Sovereignty beat in Louisville but who clearly has the best shot at tying the score. There will be drama. It will start with the playing of “Maryland, My Maryland,“ the only state song ever actually stolen from a genuine Christmas carol.

Was it the mud that made the difference in Louisville or the late scratches? Can Baeza, who ran an impressive third in the Derby, steal the Preakness.

Or as Yogi Berra, the uncrowned poet laureate of New Jersey would put it:

“I ain’t seen the size of the lady who will do the national anthem, but I promise you if she happens to be a little on the heavy side, it won’t be over until the fat lady sings.”

This remains a story in search of an ending.

Jerry Izenberg is Columnist Emeritus for NJ Advance Media. He can be reached at [email protected].